May 10, 2005

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports on a pending lawsuit that may focus attention on mass-tort settlement practices:

Thirty-four Kentuckians who shared in a multimillion-dollar, class-action settlement against the maker of the diet drug fen-phen say their former lawyers deceived them.

The group alleges that the lawyers who handled the settlement in May 2001 didn't tell them that at least $18 million was given to The Kentucky Fund for Healthy Living, a nonprofit corporation chartered and controlled by the lawyers.

Prominent Cincinnati mass-tort lawyer Stanley Chesley, who is named as a defendant in the suit but is not among the lawyers said to control the nonprofit group, called the action a "spite suit" with "no merit". More coverage: Lexington Herald-Leader, Louisville Courier-Journal. Update Mar. 6, 2006: judge resigns amid scandal.